Date:  May 07, 1996

A VOICE OF PRIDE

By Diana Fishlock

Express-Times, Easton PA

Robert Roush’s first job is to show the audience that his group does not have pink or purple hair, he says. “Then it’s our job to blow them away musically,” says Roush, artistic director of the Lehigh Valley Gay Men’s Chorus.

 He hope’s the group helps break down stereotypes and replace peoples views of homosexual men, he says.

“While we’re not a political group, we have a message,” says his partner Steven Olofson, the group’s public relations director. “We try to instill pride.”

The group, and its offshoot quartet, The Queen City Singers and the Fourtunes, sing everything from classical to pop, from madrigal to show tunes.

“Music has always been political,” says Roush, an Allentown resident. “Choral music especially has always been anti-oppression. Russian music, African-American spirituals, you name it; whatever group has been shuffled down to second-class status has always expressed itself in choral music.”

The group’s 14 members have sung Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Light One Candle” in support of Russian Jews and a 25 minute song, Testament of Freedom,” with Thomas Jefferson’s words on fighting for passion and freedom.

Sometimes the groups changes the wording to make it more appropriate “wooing a maid on a distant shore,” became “wooing a lad on a distant shore,” in a song “Brothers Sing On.”

“We try to sing to our audience, too. If we thought our audience would respond better to maid than lad, we’d do it,” Roush says. The group performs in venues as diverse as gay pride festivals, churches and Bethlehem’s Christkindlmarkt.

Although being gay isn’t a prerequisite to joining the group, all the members are gay say Roush and Olofson, who organized the group in August of 1994.

“We have had a lot of heterosexual people who have worked with us and who want to work with us,” Olofson says. “We’ve proven ourselves musically. That’s something we’re very proud of.”

Members do not even have to be men, Olofson said. They just have to be able to sing tenor, base, or baritone and be accepting of homosexuals.

“It’s a gay positive environment. We can feel free to relax and have the camaraderie,” Olofson says.

“The basic jokes are different,” says Harley Brown of Washington, who has been in several other choruses.

“There’s a lot more joking and freedom. Barbershop quartets were social, but there wasn’t this closeness.”

Jim Hummel of Allentown says he can’t emphasize enough how much fun the gay chorus is. “I just think it’s a nice thing for the gay community. It’s a nonbar situation. I wanted to expand my horizons a little. It’s a whole new set of friends.”

Christopher Miller of Hellertown, who’s been a member for about a year, agrees.

“It’s a good group of guys. We’re still in our infancy as far as a chorus group and an organization. We have a lot of growing to do, but the start we’ve made is very good.

“I like the fact to be able to sing in an all-male choir and quality of the voices. I’ve seen other gay male choruses in New York and Washington and Philadelphia and wished we had something like that around here. It was innovative for the Lehigh Valley.”

There are gay and lesbian choruses all over the United States and Europe,” Roush says. “In the last 12 years it’s really become an organized and national thing. There are choruses in larger metropolitan areas that are more than 30 years old.  “We’re 2 years old, and I Think the quality of what we do is surprisingly high.” 

The Lehigh Valley Gay Men’s Chorus will perform Saturday in Allentown at:

• 2p.m. at the free Wayne F. Writer Tree Fund memorial AIDS service between the two bridges in Little Lehigh Park. The Rain Location is St. Timothy’s Evangelical Lutheran Church.

• 8p.m. at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. The group will present its spring concert. Tickets are $5.

• For tickets or more information, call 610-437-1195